


all the happiness

by beanierose



Category: Schitt's Creek
Genre: Anxiety, Canon Compliant, Fluff, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-07
Updated: 2018-12-07
Packaged: 2019-09-13 15:41:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,328
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16895394
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beanierose/pseuds/beanierose
Summary: Patrick witnesses David have a panic attack for the first time. Set immediately post 4x11 "The Rollout."





	all the happiness

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first ever fic for this show and these two and I am FEELING A LOT.

_I have tasted all the happiness the world can offer._

**Gaston Leroux, _The Phantom of the Opera_**

* * *

 

Patrick comes backwards through the door of the store. He has his hands full juggling the box from the trunk of his car, has to kick the door closed behind himself. The store is empty, which he anticipated. From down the street he could see that all of the lights were off. Now that he's inside, the startling silence has gooseflesh prickling at the back of his neck.

“David?” He calls out.

The counter is stacked with various products and Patrick sets the box down, careful not to dislodge the lip balms. He has learned that lesson, although that’s not to say he would mind a refresher course. Now that he’s close enough to the counter, he can see over the top of it and into the storage area in the back. The curtain is half pulled across, but not enough to conceal two feet, two toned calves.

Sock feet. It’s worse than he thought.

He opens his mouth to quip about the incorrectness of the entire situation, but as he comes around the counter and through to the back he stops short in the doorway. David is sitting on the floor, legs stretched out in front of him and his back to the wall. His head is tipped back, his eyes closed.

Without words, or any other acknowledgement of Patrick, David moves his hand from his lap to lay next to him on the floor. Patrick comes the rest of the way into their storage area and pulls the curtain all the way closed. He wishes he’d flipped the lock as he came in, or at least turned the sign over. The _we’re-closed-go-away_ visage the store is currently projecting will have to be enough for now.

The floor in here is carpet and the material of his slacks catches awkwardly as he sinks to sit next to his partner. Patrick takes David’s hand and threads their fingers together. Even like this, he can feel the frenetic pound of David’s pulse in his wrist.

“Is this-?” He starts, thinks better of it.

He knows - he has known - about David’s anxiety. About the panic attacks. It was actually Alexis who brought it up first, needling David after their open mic night.

_It’s Patrick who got up on stage in front of all those people, so how come you’re the one having a panic attack, David?_

They’ve talked about it a little since then, but after everything that happened with Rachel there hasn’t been much time to delve into things properly. Anyone who spends more than a minute with David Rose can tell he’s fairly high strung. It’s the quiet that unsettles Patrick the most.

He’s on David’s good side, and when he turns to look at Patrick he makes a concerted effort to keep his face slack. All day long, he’s had a running commentary about the Situation evolving at the store, but David had refused to send pictures. Didn’t want Patrick to have permanent evidence of how David had been so _hideously disfigured_.

“What can I do?”

“It’s. . .getting better.” The left side of David’s mouth tugs upwards in a self-conscious smile. He’s not as fidgety as usual, his free hand lying limp in his lap. His shoulders are high and drawn in.

Patrick shifts closer until he can touch his cheek to the ball of David’s shoulder. He turns his head a fraction, kisses the smooth material of David’s sweater.

“Is it because of the rash? Because it’s really not that bad. In a few days I’m sure you’ll be back to normal.”

“A few _da_ \- okay. No. Ew. It’s fine.” He waves a flippant hand and closes his eyes again. There’s a long beat of silence where David chews on his lip and Patrick does his best to seem nonchalant. “I thought. . .we were done.”

The most important thing he’s learned in all these months of knowing David Rose is that if you’re quiet long enough, he can’t help but fill the silence. Poke him and he retreats back into himself, but usually his nervous ramblings find a thread of cohesion if you’re patient.

“My dad came in here talking about us getting sued and I yelled at Brenda on the phone so God knows what she’s going to put in the next batch and I can’t be the face of the business when my face is this and you were gone and I didn’t know how to handle it and-”

“Whoa, David. Breathe.” Patrick cuts him off. He lays his free hand on David’s chest. It’s something David had confessed helps, said it stops the feeling that his heart is about to leap right out.

Peering a little more intently at David now, he can see that his in breaths are jagged and catching in his throat. His exhales are taking a little too long to come each time. Patrick focuses on his own breathing, keeps it as steady and even as he can. After a couple of minutes, David levels out to match him.

Once he’s sure that David is not about to start hyperventilating or pass out on him, Patrick moves. It takes a second of awkward manoeuvring, but he shifts so that he’s kneeling instead. This way, he can look at David.

It’s _bad_. The rash is beginning to blister and his skin looks red raw. David’s eyes dart around the room, studying his own cuticles, the boxes stacked with stock they don’t have the space for yet.

“I brought you some stuff. Wait there.”

“Oh, I will be waiting here until the- the- abomination on my face goes away.” David’s voice rises in pitch as he speaks and Patrick is grateful to hide his smile as he ducks out of the room to grab the box.

He comes back to David, feeling the tug low down in his gut. These past four days while he’s been out of town he has squirmed around the fish hook of need in his belly. Codependence was never something he imagined for himself until he met David.

All of the little touches are habit, now. He can’t stay away.

“Alright, so it’s a very good job I was in the city at just the right time,” he begins. “if you’d been struck down like this with us both stuck in Schitt’s Creek I don’t know what we’d have done.”

“Sent me away to a convent?” David offers on a lift of his eyebrows.

He lets that one go, although he’s not necessarily averse to revisiting that particular fantasy. Patrick runs through the inventory of everything he bought while he was out of town, lifting each item from the box to show David as he does so.

The last seminar had wrapped up a little earlier than expected. He had had every intention of going straight home, perhaps closing the store for the afternoon and pinning David against the desk in their office. When he saw the three missed calls and thirty seven unread texts waiting for him, his plans changed.

He spent a couple of hours wandering through the city, collecting everything he hopes will help his boyfriend through this trying time. Calamine lotion, of course. Some compresses he can put in the freezer to help soothe David’s face. Antihistamine pills, a new moisturiser that the woman in the store assured him was made for sensitive skin. The artisanal chocolates David has been known to pay upwards of $15 to have delivered. That probably took the longest, since Patrick deliberated for a while over which ones to get. Oh yeah, and right at the bottom of the box-

“Is this a _Phantom of the Opera mask_?” David snatches it and turns it over, inspecting the other side.

Laughter bubbles up from deep in Patrick’s chest. He ducks his chin to try and hide it, but it spills out anyway. “Yes, it is. Don’t actually wear it, it’s best to let the rash air out. I just thought it might be useful if there’s any scarring.”

He peeks at David from beneath his lashes, just in time to catch the wash of pure horror that cascades across his face.

“Scarring?” David whispers, and suddenly it’s not funny anymore.

His boyfriend was having a panic attack. Clearly, this has shaken him.

“Hey,” Patrick cups the - unscathed - side of David’s face. His thumb swoops absentmindedly back and forth over the delicate skin beneath David’s eye. “There’s not gonna be scarring. I’ve read up on exactly what we need to do. I’ll take care of it.”

David chews on the inside of his cheek. He’s beginning to reanimate, his fingers now busying at the bottom of Patrick’s shirt. Trying to untuck it, most likely, but he’s not done yet.

“David, you know I love your face, right?”

“Well, I _did_ turn you. So yes, I got that.”

Patrick snorts on an undignified laugh. It’s not exactly true; he had been questioning for a long time before he met David. No one had ever been worth diving in before, though.

“But I don’t care. I don’t care if you’re horribly disfigured, I don’t _care_ if this rash never heals and your face starts peeling away.” He’s teasing, trying to keep it light because he’s not convinced that what he wants to say will make David calmer. “I’m not with you for your face.”

He touches his thumb to the fullness of David’s bottom lip, leaves it there a moment while he studies the slash of David’s mouth. So quick and sharp, so nimble. So very talented. He leans in and touches his lips to David’s, feels the waves of hot irritation rolling off the right side of his face.

“Don’t tell your dad,” he whispers when they break apart.

He had received a play-by-play of David’s conversations with Mr Rose today, including that Johnny had warned them to take a breather on the making out front. The thought of David’s dad thinking about that, acknowledging at all that they do that, does make him a bit uncomfortable. Still, he would have loved to have been in the room for David’s reaction to that particular comment.

There will certainly be a rehashing of it when Patrick next sees Stevie, so for now he’s happy not to push the issue.

David grins and lifts his chin, seeking Patrick’s mouth again. It’s a clumsy knocking together of teeth, but David nips at Patrick’s bottom lip and he hums softly, curls his fingers at David’s ear. His other hand comes to rest over David’s heart, feels its rhythm still a little faster than Patrick would like.

“It’s not panic,” David says quietly. “It’s you. I really missed you.”

“Do you maybe feel ready to get off the floor? Put your shoes on? Sock feet in a public place, David-” he musters his best and most serious expression, shakes his head slowly. “Incorrect.”

The way David’s name feels in his mouth still sends a secret shiver of pleasure through Patrick. There’s something sacred about it, something just theirs. Even if it’s not individual to them, the weight of David’s name between them when he moves over Patrick in the dark is like a benediction.

He kisses David so that he won’t say something stupid. His boyfriend is vain, that’s not news to anybody. He knows how it shakes him to have his appearance be at all compromised. Patrick takes the time to work slowly at him, feels the thin thread of self-control between them stretching more and more taut.

Four days is a long time. They’ve texted constantly, spoken on the phone each morning and night. Even so, nothing comes close to the quicksilver of David’s body beneath his hands.

Flustered, Patrick clears his throat and gets to his feet. He offers a hand to David and hauls him upright, uses the momentum to nudge David back against the wall and pin him there with a thigh between his.

“I really-” he dips his head and licks at the hollow of David’s throat, drinks in the gasp it elicits. “Really missed you, too.”

He steps away from David then and busies himself gathering his wares into the box while David puts his shoes back on. Once they’re both ready, he lets David lead him out of the store with a warm hand at the small of his back.

“Do you mind if we stop at the motel? I have some stuff for Stevie, too.”

For a long moment David only watches him, wordlessly. A smile spreads slowly over his face. Not that lopsided tug that Patrick so adores, either. A real one.

“Thank you,” David says, and captures Patrick’s face in his palms.

“For what?”

That same electric thrill from the night of their first kiss crackles between them. This time, it’s Patrick’s turn to shake his head.

“For distracting me. For bringing me gifts. For bringing _Stevie_ gifts. For still being able to kiss me, even though I look like Alexis before she got on Accutane.” David wrinkles his nose and trails off for a second, casts a glance around himself. “For not making a big deal out of it.”

Patrick leans in to kiss David again. His face is somehow, impossibly, warmer than before. They need to get to Ray’s and get these compresses in the freezer so he can actually start helping, but first.

“I know you, David. Everything that you are.”

He spots the rapid reddening of David’s eyes, the tiny sniffle he tries so valiantly to disguise by looking away. It never ceases to amaze him how readily David lets Patrick see the effect his words have. Still, he’s quite sure that literal salt in the wound is not the best idea for this evening.

“Now come on, let’s get you in the car. Before the townspeople have time to ready their pitchforks.”

**Author's Note:**

> Come say hello on Twitter, I'm @reallybeanie


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